A Cynical Glance At Events Around The World

October 21, 2009

Well, there you have it: there’ll be a second round of presidential elections in Afghanistan on November 7, with the incumbent President, Hamid Karzai, standing against his main rival, a man with a strange name of Abdullah Abdullah, who probably lost in the first round because most people thought that there were two people named Abdullah running as a tandem, and did not want to vote for them. In the previous round, if you care to know, Mr Karzai had received 55 per cent of the votes and the Abdullah ‘duo’ got a very respectable 28 per cent. As the Afghan constitution, a document that no one has ever seen, specifies that anyone, who gets over 50 per cent of the votes in presidential elections, should be declared the winner, President Karzai did just that: declared himself the winner.But the UN’s Electoral Complaints Commission spoiled the party by insisting that it had received a lot of complaints about cases of fraud. Eventually the ECC delivered its verdict: Mr Karzai did not actually poll 50 per cent, as many of his votes were invalid. Seasoned observers pointed out that had the United States been comfortable with Mr Karzai, the ECC would have probably been more relaxed about the irregularities at the polls. But as Washington is rather disappointed with President Karzai’s eight year reign, the feeling in the ECC seemed to be that democracy should prevail.

As a result Western leaders called on the Afghan leader to reconsider his position and guess what? He did, and announced that he is ready to go to the country once again in less than three weeks’ time. The West applauded him for his wisdom and bravery and everyone now is very excited about the prospect of a second round of presidential elections being held in a country torn apart by civil war. The simple question, who on earth needs another round when it is crystal clear that it will be as rigged as the first one, was somehow ignored by everyone. The reality is that NATO troops are stuck in Afghanistan because of the idiocy of their politicians, while the Afghan government has only enough influence to run the inner part of Kabul, not really having any say in other parts.

Cynics are saying that the reason why another round of elections is forthcoming has all to do with U.S President Barack Obama getting more breathing space, before he would have to announce his new policy on Afghanistan. Which sort of implies that no one in Washington really knows what to do about it.

Meanwhile in Britain, in a dramatic gesture, a group of senior British generals signed a collective letter – collective letters are a very Soviet phenomenon – warning that the right-wing British National Party (BNP) is trying to hijack patriotic British symbols and associate itself with the armed forces for it devious campaigning purposes. The four mighty generals in question are: General Sir Richard Dannat and General Sir Michael Jackson (no relation to the late superstar), both former heads of the Army, Lord Guthrie, former Chief of the Defence Staff and Major-General Patrick Cordingley, former commander of the Desert Rats in the Gulf War. Here is a taste of what is in the letter: ‘We call on all those who seek to hijack the good name of Britain’s military for their own advantage to cease and desist. The values of these extremists – many of whom are essentially racists – are fundamentally at odds with the values of the modern British military such as fairness and tolerance.’

So that you know, the letter was written in response to the BNP using British military images in its election campaigns, including the photo of Winston Churchill with his famous victory sign and of a Spitfire logo with the words ‘Battle of Britain’. The problem with this letter, designed to prevent the BNP from using any military or patriotic imagery, is that it is a bit of wasted effort, considering that no one in his right mind would associate the British armed forces with an extreme right-wing party. What the four generals should have been doing was putting pressure on the Labour government to decide once and for all what it is exactly that the British forces are doing in Afghanistan and pressing ministers to provide them with enough proper equipment to avoid more casualties.

And one more thing: it is all very fine to stand up to the BNP and defend the integrity and good name of the British Army, but how about defending that very same army from Labour that has done a lot undermine and discredit the British forces by launching illegal wars and sending men to die for no particular reason. Former British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, alone did more damage to the image of the armed forces than the BNP could ever do in all its years of existence.

And speaking of Tony Blair, the great man has actually visited the West Bank in his capacity as the Envoy for the Quartet of nations and toured the city of Hebron, going on a walkabout under the watchful eye of about a thousand bodyguards. It was during this walkabout that Mr Blair wondered, with his entourage, into an ancient Palestinian mosque, no doubt hoping to have one of his regular chats with God that he had so frequently conducted during his days in 10 Downing Street. As Mr Blair and his hosts were walking about the mosque a man started shouting abuse at the Envoy for the Quartet, calling him, among other things, ‘a terrorist’. The man was pushed outside by the burly Palestinian minders and Mr Blair graciously explained to the accompanying journalists that he has gotten used to that sort of reception as he gets it all the time. Unfortunately for him he then had to answer unpleasant question from a woman tourist from Britain, who asked him what was it exactly that he did for the Palestinians and would it not have been better to use the money he wasted on the war in Iraq on helping their cause. Mr Blair explained to the woman that he has done so much for the Palestinians that he is now universally loved by them. The man, tipped to become the first President of the European Union, has absolutely no problem with coming up with the most ridiculous things to get out of any difficult situation. Pity Europe that is getting such a President.

But it is not only Mr Blair who tends to say absurd things. As Western government continue a campaign to convince everyone that the recession is finally coming to an end, another unsubstantiated rosy prediction came from Scotland yesterday, where the Governor of the Bank of England, Mervyn King, presented his take on the state of the British economy. The man who had allowed the banks in Britain to do whatever they wanted and failed to warn the nation about the impending catastrophe, came out with an assertion that moderate growth in Britain’s economy will come as soon as this year. Yes, Mr King, who sometimes is very cruelly called ‘horny badger’, announced the end of the recession in Britain, even though the situation is still looking rather desperate for the national economy. The Governor of the BoE also came up with a staggering statistic that the annual rate of inflation in Britain is currently 1.1 per cent, which is about as close to reality as an episode of Star Trek. Mr King should venture out more to see for himself what sort of prices exist in the real world. Not to mention that he is the person who is, technically speaking, sitting on top of the huge pile of new banknotes that have been printed to boost the economy, in a way that many banana republics do. So he should know that if you print a lot of new paper money in a recession, that money devalues and pushes inflation up. Mr King is not a politician but during this recession he has been playing politics to an extent that makes people wonder whether he was not secretly appointed by Prime Minister Gordon Brown as his Commissar for Finance.

And finally, a huge cultural event has taken place in the United States: for the first time ever that beacon of sophistication, the magazine Playboy, has put a cartoon character on its front page and on a three page spread inside. Marge Simpson, the blue-haired weird looking heroine of the cartoon series, the Simpsons, has adorned Playboy’s cover in a provocative pose. The Simpsons have been running now for 20 years and have even surpassed such a great American TV classic as the Western series Gunsmoke. Fans of the cartoon are bound to buy up the latest issue of Playboy and it is rather distressing to think what some of them might get up to in the privacy of their bedrooms.

– End –

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